Table Of Content

Marcia Freeman’s K–8 School-Wide Writing Program and Staff Development Resource CraftPlus® Curriculum Guide Fourth Grade Third Edition Maupin House CraftPlus® Curriculum Guide Third Edition © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Maupin House Publishing, Inc. CraftPlus® is a registered trademark of Maupin House Publishing, Inc. Target Skills™ is a trademark of Maupin House Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Materials and Reproducibles may be copied for classroom use only. Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation to the school districts of Sarasota County, Florida and Montgomery County, Maryland for their help in creating this staff development program; to their instructional television personnel, who produced the sixteen videos; to Lynn Urban, Project Coordinator, of Sarasota County and Robin Weaver, Principal, Harmony Hills Elementary School in Montgomery County, who shepherded pieces of the project in their respective districts; to Cheryl Srygley and Nell Waldrop and the teachers in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana for their support; and to my husband Mike Freeman, my first editor and booster, who holds the fort during my travels. Marcia S. Freeman Maupin House Publishing, Inc. 2416 NW 71 Place Gainesville, FL 32653 800-524-0634 www.maupinhouse.com Table of Contents Section 1 Preface—Marcia S. Freeman ................................................................1.v Quick CraftPlus Overview ............................................................................1.7−1.10 The CraftPlus Components ...........................................................1.7 Key Terms ..............................................................................................1.8 Writing Notebooks for Teachers and Students .......................1.9 Understanding CraftPlus Writing Levels and Instructional Levels ............1.10 How to Teach a Target Skill ...........................................................................1.11 The CraftPlus Mini-Lesson ..............................................................1.12 The Reading/Writing Connection ................................................1.14 Teaching with Picture-Prompted Writing: Sample Mini-Lesson ................1.15 How to Plan for and Teach with Genre Blocks in Grades 2–8 .....................1.18 Suggested Classroom Instruction Timeline ................................................1.19 Suggested Study Group Schedule ...............................................................1.22 CraftPlus Supporting Templates and Forms ...............................................1.24 Primary Writing Stages Assessment ...........................................1.25 Assessment Form A ..........................................................................1.26 Assessment Form B ..........................................................................1.27 Genre Block Planning Tool .............................................................1.28 Lesson Plan Template ......................................................................1.29 Literature Models for Mini-Lessons Template .........................1.30 Rubrics ...................................................................................................1.31−1.33 Single Skill Multiple Skills Student Self-Assessment Section 2 Study Guide Discussion Points and Video Visuals ......................................2.1−2.47 1.iii Section 3 CraftPlus Curriculum, Forms, and Lesson Scaffolds: Contents ..................3.i A Year of Writing .................................................................................3.3 Genre Map (with grade highlighted) ..........................................3.5 Grade-Level Marking Period Pacing Charts ..............................3.6 Genre Tier Charts................................................................................3.7 Quarterly Target Skills-Instruction Record ...............................3.28 Record of Student Application of Target Skills .......................3.33 Application of Target Skills by Genre Block: Class Roster ....3.38 Lesson Plan Scaffolds ......................................................................3.39 On CD K–8 Student Writing Samples Program Visuals Prepared for Overhead Use High Frequency Word List Greenbar Paper Reproducible This Writing Is Under Construction Sign This Writing Was Edited For… Sign CraftPlus Comparison Organizer Bibliography 1.iv Dear Colleagues: This is an exciting time for writing education. Educators are paying increased attention to the subject, and for good reason. Nationally recognized research has identified a strong writing program as one of five character- istics common to schools that achieve superior academic performance, regardless of student demographics. In addition, state writing standards and proficiency testing are driving interest in improved writing education. Writing is now recognized as a powerful tool for learning and for authentic assessment throughout the content areas. By embarking on the CraftPlus program, you are joining educators across the country who are responding to these developments and in the process revolutionizing writing instruction. CraftPlus represents a fundamental change in how we look at writing and how we teach it. It leaves behind the “assign and assess” paradigm and goes well beyond creative writing journals. In CraftPlus, we teach writing craft—the wonderful set of skills and techniques that good writers know and use to make their writing effective and enjoyable. Through its enhanced writing-process mechanisms, CraftPlus instruction promotes revision, the key to good writing. I am confident you will find the CraftPlus approach logical, effective, and satisfying. I know this from the many teachers who have told me: “You changed my life.” “This is stuff I never learned in school myself.” “This is the piece that was missing in my attempts to teach writing.” “I couldn’t get my students to write, now I can hardly get them to stop.” “Two years ago 27% of my students scored above the state average on the writing assessment; this year 100% of them, and it’s all because of your writing-craft approach to teaching writing.” You will be amazed when you see what your students can do when you teach writing craft. And you will be even more so when you see what your students can do when they have learned these skills progressively from kindergarten. As I said, this is an exciting time for writing education, and it is a rewarding time to be a writing educator. Marcia S. Freeman July 2006 1.v this page is blank CraftPlus® Curriculum Guide Quick CraftPlus Overview “Our range, our capabilities go no further than craft. Even in creative writing courses, craft is all that can be taught.” —Robert Scholes, The Rise and Fall of English (1998) CraftPlus is a K–8 writing program that unifies writing instruction across an entire school or district. The integrated learning package consists of a K–8 core writing curriculum based on Target Skills-instruction, professional books, grade-level Curriculum Guides, sixteen workshop and classroom demonstration videos or DVDs, and a CD with student samples and other classroom support materials. You will learn how to teach writing by working with the materials in study groups, reading the books, and by practicing in your own class- rooms the skills and techniques you learn. What you will do first. Most teachers like to start small when they make changes in the way they teach. That’s fine. CraftPlus is not an all-or-nothing program. As you work with the CraftPlus components over the next year or two, your approach to writing instruction will change, too. Teaching to Target Skills makes it easy to begin teaching writing craft almost immediately as part of your normal writing schedule and during content- area instruction. First off, you’ll watch a video or two, read a few pages of the professional books, and get started with your study group. You’ll learn the basic instructional techniques you need to get started. In your classroom, you’ll start by teaching basic, descriptive Target Skills from a list that CraftPlus provides. These skills build a foundation for later work with genres. The CraftPlus Components CraftPlus is an integrated learning package with a curriculum, professional books, grade-level Curriculum Guides, and sixteen videos. The Videos. Videos 1-10 are about 40 minutes long, contain one to four segments and are appropriate for all K–8 teachers. Video 11, “The Emergent Writer’s Workshop,” demonstrates how kindergarten and first-grade teachers can move young students from each emergent-writer stage to the next. This video is 34 minutes long. Videos 12-16 demonstrate specific writing-craft lessons in a classroom. They cover editing by ear, elaboration, ending techniques, supporting details, and sentence variation. Each of these videos connects to a workshop video topic. CraftPlus Curriculum Guide. This desk-level guide supports a year of instruction. Section 1 gives you an overview and includes templates for instruction and assessment, planning forms, lesson plan template, and three rubrics. Section 2 contains study group discussion points and program visuals. Section 3 contains the grade-level curriculum, quarterly Target Skills-instruction records, records of student application of Target Skills, end-of-year expectations, Target Skills by genre, and lesson plan scaffolds. A separate CD contains student writing samples in all genres, the program visuals prepared for use as overheads and handouts, and various classroom supports. Professional Resource. Each teacher receives one of the professional resources cited in the study guide discussion. The resources are full of useful tips and lessons. The resources extend the information you will find in the videos. They are designed to be used with the videos. Your CraftPlus facilitator, who supports CraftPlus implementation for your school or district, has received copies of the professional resources and the Curriculum Guides for the grades purchased. 1.7 Section 1 Some Key Terms The K–8 Curriculum. The progressive and spiraling K–8 curriculum is organized by genre around composing, organization, and convention skills. CraftPlus introduces the craft-directed curriculum from the first day of school in kindergarten, even for students who cannot read. Instruction incorporates writing process and emphasizes practice writing in writing workshop or content-area writing. The CraftPlus curriculum covers the major craft elements pertinent to descriptive writing and narrative and expository genres. The K–8 Genre Map in Section 3 shows you the genres that CraftPlus supports and the genres that you will be teaching in your grade. Target Skills. Target Skills are single writing-craft skills that you teach and which your students then practice and apply either in writing workshop or in response to content-area instruction. Target Skills transform writing instruction into an objective-based activity in which specific writing-craft skills are modeled, explained, and practiced. Target Skills help students learn the skills and techniques that all writers use. Writing to Target Skills is the primary focus of practice-writing for students as they journal or write self-selected, assigned, or prompted pieces. Target Skills facilitate revision, and they establish an objective assessment criterion for student writing. A Target Skill may be general (how to embed definitions in text or use alliteration), or specific to a genre (the chronological ordering of events in a personal narrative). You will learn which Target Skills you are responsible for teaching and how to model these explicit techniques using literature models and examples that you and your students develop. Descriptive Writing Target Skills. All CraftPlus teachers in your school begin each instructional year by teaching and reviewing descriptive writing Target Skills. These skills are used across all genres and in all grades. You will review and teach these organizational and composing Target Skills again as part of your genre-block instruction. You can find Target Skills for your grade in Section 3. Genre Blocks. A genre block is a period of instructional time set aside to teach Target Skills that apply to a specific writing genre. Genre blocks can be as short as one to two weeks for elementary grades and as long as a month or nine-weeks for intermediate and middle grades. K–1 students begin learning about different genres. However, most K–1 students do not sustain genre pieces over time in genre blocks. A genre block for grades 2-8 ends with an assessed piece of student writing. During your first year working with CraftPlus, K–5 teachers spend more time with core descriptive Target Skills and may only teach a few genre blocks. Middle-school teachers will begin teaching a specific genre after they teach descriptive Target Skills for six to nine weeks. CraftPlus Writing Levels. This guide organizes Target Skills by genre and within each genre by the develop- mental stages of writers (Initial, Developing, Fluent, and Fluent Plus, abbreviated as IDFFP). The levels define writers by how well they know and apply appropriate Target Skills, not by age or grade. This continuum helps you differentiate writing instruction based on the ability of your students. They appear on the genre tier charts in Section 3. They are explained more fully later in this section. Instructional Levels. Each grade level teacher has an instructional role to play in the CraftPlus curriculum. Sometimes you will make students aware of a Target Skill, sometimes students will attempt a skill, and sometimes they will be able to carry that skill to mastery. Since students require several years to master most writing skills, CraftPlus revisits, repeats, and develops many concepts from year to year. The Awareness Level, Instructional Level, or Mastery Level (AIM) lays out the progression for you in the Target Skills Instruction Record Skills-Instruction form in Section 3. They are explained more fully later in this section. 1.8 CraftPlus® Curriculum Guide Study Group Learning. Research by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and others have shown that study groups are an excellent way to help teachers grow professionally. CraftPlus integrates professional development. You will meet regularly with a small group of colleagues to view a segment of a video and to discuss writing instruction. You will develop and share lesson plans based on the videos and the professional resources and try them out in your classroom. “Writing craft skills and principles do not change with a writer’s age—for example, a six-year-old writer and a sixty-year-old writer must both write with strong verbs. What does change, as the writer’s vocabulary and general knowledge increase with reading growth and life experience, is the sophistication with which the writer is able to apply those skills or principles. The strong verb choice of the sixty-year-old will certainly be more advanced than that of the six-year- old. In each grade, the sophistication of our lessons and models must match the experience level of our students.” —Marcia S. Freeman Writing Notebooks for Teachers and Students Teacher Writing Notebooks. Many teachers find it beneficial to develop a professional writing instruction notebook. Your teacher writing notebook is the place to store mini-lessons with student samples, literature model sources, and completed genre block plans, forms and templates. Customize it to reflect your classroom style and lesson repertoires. You may begin assembling these a few weeks after you begin teaching with CraftPlus. Suggested contents: • Mini-lessons associated with writing for craft, conventions, and writing-process skills. • Bibliographies of literature models for each writing-craft lesson. • Assessments: Genre-block rubrics, state-test rubrics, school/grade rubrics, prompts, and portfolio procedures. See the Target Skills-based rubrics in this section in “Supporting Templates and Forms.” • Grade-specific Target Skills information. • Student samples. • State, district, or school language arts standards and benchmarks. Student Writing Notebooks. Student writing notebooks hold writing pieces, writing ideas, and reference sheets. They manage student work effectively. Customize them to reflect your classroom instruction style and students’ needs. New resources for student reference should be added throughout the year as they are needed. When you add something new, demonstrate its use with a mini-lesson. K–1 writers often do most of their writing in journal-like composition notebooks. In addition to a journal, a three-prong, two-pocket folder works well for holding practice- and content-area pieces done on single sheets as well as the student reference resources you provide. Suggested contents: • Class name list with color photographs • High frequency word list • ABC Sound Chart • Color words, number words • I can write about... for writing ideas • Individualized editing check-list (mid-year for kindergarten) 1.9 Section 1 Optional: • Personal word bank • Target Skills list (first grade) • Class-created strong verb lists, descriptive attribute lists Grade 2−8 writers use a three-ring binder divided into tabbed sections. Suggested contents: • Writing Record of genre pieces • Practice sections that reflect Target Skill lessons • Finished pieces • Printed reference pages – HELPS • Self-evaluation methods • Resources section • Target Skills and examples • High frequency words • Editing Checklists • Peer Conferencing Additional Possible Tabbed Sections: • Lists of writing ideas • Lists of craft found in reading • Description • Narrative • Expository • Literature response Understanding CraftPlus Writing Levels and Instructional Levels Writing Levels. At the beginning of each year you’ll determine the level of your students’ writing with a CraftPlus assessment tool. This information will help you differentiate instruction to meet the needs of individual students. The CraftPlus genre tiers in Section 3 provide Target Skills-application across the Initial, Developing, Fluent, and Fluent Plus writing levels. See CD for leveled student samples. • Initial writers are making, or have made, the oral-to-written connection. They understand that what they say can be written for an audience or themselves to read. They eventually write a few related sentences, but they often start a sentence in the same way over and over. These writers learn to write a beginning and ending and use basic composing skills in their pieces. Initial writers are approximately grade K–1 students. • Developing writers are more comfortable writing several ideas based on a topic. They can include beginnings and endings in their pieces and make an attempt to vary sentence structure. These writers begin to use composing and literary skills to engage the reader. Developing writers are approximately grade 2-3 students. • Fluent writers are capable of writing developed multi-paragraphed pieces with beginnings and endings. They use many composing skills and strive for varied sentence structure. They are capable of writing more genres, including persuasion and comparison. Fluent writers are approximately grade 4-5 students. 1.10